We're having a baby! WHAT?! That was baby's first ultrasound on 6/19/13. Here is baby prepping to be a ginger and eat souls on 7/6/13:
We thought we saw a kielbasa in between those legs but we aren't for sure. Here is our latest scans on 7/17/13:
We are currently estimated at a due date of 1/18/14 (my little sister G's bday) but our E.D.D. has been moved 3 times already so I am just taking it as this baby will come when it wants to come. We are very, very excited but this journey started out pretty rocky. I'm going to get real about it & how scary/hard that first month was.
In Paris on our last day in the city I love I got SUPER sick, like puking all day, want to die, crying in a ball in a W.C. sick. I thought I had food poisoning from the Louvre cafeteria. It was so bad just even typing about it or talking about it makes me feel like I'm going to barf. I was also sick the entire 12 hour plane ride back to the states the following day. My poor seat mate (not Joe) hated me as I needed to keep running to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so. The car ride back to our apartment was torture. But then the food poisoning didn't go away. For a week. And so we took some pregnancy tests which read in the "normal" range [a.k.a. 2 lines but one lighter than the other] so naturally I shouted "you're a liar E.P.T., you're a lying liar and I hate you! I'm pregnant! CRAP!" Then I called my almost sister in law. Who works with preggo mommies. She advised to wait 48 hours to let my HCG levels double and re-test. So I did. The test read pregnant. Then I panicked. I just had a VERY expensive spinal surgery, to fix my screwed up for the past decade spine, I was only two months post-op! Could I even have a baby right now? Would my surgeon let me? If he advises against it do I want to possibly mess up this million dollar surgery that I thought I might die in? AHHHHHH!
So I did the sensible thing, I left multiple panicking messages with increasing intensity on my poor surgeon's office voicemail in almost tears for three days. Poor guy & poor office staff. They finally got back to me to move up my appointment to see him and discuss this news but they couldn't get me in before our trip to Michigan, so I begged to just talk to him via phone the next second he had out of surgery (he's got a super busy schedule since it's summer, everyone wants summer surgeries!). He called, I barely was able to ask if I needed to terminate, he reassured that I have healed better than anyone he's seen & to treat this like any other normal pregnancy and that I would be fine and probably champion through any back discomfort better than most women do from my decade of experience with back pain being at a level 25-40. I thanked him got of the phone and started to bawl. Joe wrapped me up in his arms and asked me if we needed to call to schedule an appointment, I told him we could keep the baby and admitted how much I really wanted this little one. We hugged a long time. Then I got really excited and Joe panicked because he was officially going to be a dad! See how we balance each other out? I panicked & he was fine, then I got elated & he full blown panicked about changing diapers. I love that guy. He's amazing and ridiculous! I've been changing diapers since I was eight, we got this babe!
Then we saw my ob/gyn whom I adore. I got officially confirmed as pregnant, we took levels in my pee & blood, we chatted about my vegan pregnancy (which by the way she is in full support of so don't panic I get enough protein & vitamins and am on a vegan prenatal), and we planned our first ultra-sound. That first ultra-sound a few weeks later was amazing, there was our little R.G.B. (rice grain baby-we call it by its size this week it's lemon baby) with a 183 heart rate. It looked like a little tiny alien inside me. The second ultra-sound baby's heart was at 166 and was waving at us. It literally waved its little arm at us! And we begged our tech to write "Hi. I will eat your soul!" so we could take silly photos since I'm pretty sure it will be a ginger baby. Hey, we may be almost parents but we're still us! This third ultra-sound we checked the neck measurements and did a huge blood panel to check for downs syndrome, chromosome 18, chromosome 13, and a bunch of other genetic issues. Baby's neck looks great but this child is already a stinker & didn't want to stay still to get measured and kept flipping and squirming and waving so I am now 95% positive this child is a ginger!
We brought our doula (who is our pal and also a RN in the ICU & NICU here at UCLA hospitals) and she met with my ob/gyn. I have a great team in my corner and we are all working together to plan for this January arrival! I am really excited and Joey and I are making decisions (cloth diapers and breast feeding for us) and planning away (I need a job & we need a bigger apartment!) so we are busy bees. This was a rough start not feeling like we had a choice about the baby [let me tell you that now that I've experienced a "I have no choice in the matter" moment I SUPER stand by every woman's reproductive rights even more now] and then being sick for 6-8ish weeks with constant nausea and vomiting was AWFUL (& I am glad that part is over) and now we're just so excited and over the moon to welcome our little guy or gal in 2014. We are embarking on quite an adventure and after this past year (married, surgery prep, surgery, surgery recovery, pregnant) nothing can phase us, we got this universe. We got this!
